Synthesis
by Kristen Elizabeth
Summary: A process which combines together two elements, resulting in the formation of something new. Sarek/Amanda, Spock/Uhura.


Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: I was inspired by the discussion on the birth control of the future that I kicked off at the Spock/Uhura community on Livejournal. Thank you to everyone who participated in that;) And thank you to Lisa for reading this over and helping me with my math. Enjoy!

* * *

Synthesis

by Kristen Elizabeth

* * *

_Synthesis: a process which combines together two or more pre-existing elements resulting in the formation of something new._

_"You will always be a child of two worlds. I am grateful for that...and for you." - Sarek_

* * *

Amanda could hear the Vulcan funeral dirge through the haze of a tranquilizer hypospray. She hadn't asked for it, but the doctor had given it to her anyway, as if he hadn't wanted to be bothered with her Human emotions.

Some tiny part of her was grateful for that. It certainly was easier to lie in bed in a fog, with just a vague painful pressure on her heart, rather than be fully awake and aware of her crippling loss.

Eventually, the mournful chant coupled with the medication lulled Amanda into a dreamless sleep. When she woke hours later, Sarek was sitting by her side. His funeral robe was a brown so dark that it could have been mistaken for black. His hands were pressed together, the tips of his fingers touched his mouth as if he was praying.

With the tranquilizer's numbing affect almost gone, Amanda felt tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

He replied a moment later, his voice deep and raw. "It is not logical to be sorry for something that was not your fault."

Her hand drifted down to her belly. Why was it still so round? For a second, Amanda wondered if it could have all been just a nightmare. It certainly seemed like it could have been. Carrying a child for eight months only to have it die within your own body...it was too much to bear.

Again.

* * *

When the first child they'd conceived had flowed from her at nine weeks, she had not cried. She had not even been entirely sure that she'd been pregnant. They'd still been on Earth then, and the Human doctor who had cared for her had said it wasn't uncommon, despite modern medicine, for women to miscarry early on. She hadn't seemed to think that the baby's genetic makeup had anything to do with its passing.

"You can try again soon," the woman had told Amanda with a sad smile. "Children are a miracle."

There had been no time to really love that first child. But Amanda had cried for the second child they'd lost. They had only been on Vulcan for four months when the bleeding had started. The Vulcan doctor had said it was inevitable that she would miscarry.

"It would be illogical to attempt another conception," he'd told Sarek. They were well within earshot of Amanda, but the doctor hadn't seemed to care. With tears running down her cheeks, she'd heard him tell her husband, "Offspring are impossible."

For weeks afterwards, long after her body had healed, Sarek had barely touched her. Another woman might have hated him for it, but Amanda hadn't fallen in love with a Vulcan blindly. In his own way, Sarek was grieving for their child. And as much as she wanted them to grieve together, it was better to let him come to her when he was ready.

When he did, it was perfect. If she'd ever doubted the strength of their bond before, she hadn't after that night. Holding onto him in the dark as the pleasure ebbed away, Amanda had been certain that a child would result from their lovemaking, no matter how illogical the assumption might have been.

And she'd been right. The baby had been stronger than its lost siblings, yet Amanda still found herself dreading the nine week mark and then the four month mark. When she reached seven months and her belly was expanding and the child was constantly kicking, she let herself begin to believe that the Vulcan doctor had been wrong. This child was meant to be.

It was Sarek who had noticed the baby had stopped moving. He'd taken to sleeping with one hand on her stomach; she liked to think it was on purpose, like he wanted to be in constant contact with their child.

"Amanda," he'd said that morning, rousing her from her dreams. The smile on her face had quickly faded when she'd seen the worry in his eyes, emotion that he wasn't even trying to suppress. "I am taking you to the medical center."

The doctors had searched for a heartbeat for a long time, but there was none. Twelve hours later, she'd delivered a tiny, lifeless girl with pointed ears and deformed lungs who she had prematurely named Sarela. As she looked at the baby that would never cry, never smile, never speak its first word, never know how wanted and loved it had been, Amanda wondered if maybe the Vulcan doctor had been right.

Offspring just weren't possible.

* * *

Still touching her rounded, but empty belly, Amanda sought out her husband's blank stare. "I can't do this anymore." Her slender shoulders shuddered under the weight of a ragged sob. "I just can't!"

Sarek lowered his hands and took one of hers. "Then...we will not try again."

For two years afterwards, Amanda submitted to the contraceptive injections provided by the Vulcan doctors. She took flowers to the tiny grave where their baby had been laid to rest. She threw herself into the job of being an Ambassador's wife, of being a Human woman living in Vulcan society. She never let herself think about the silent halls of their home and how welcome the sound of tiny feet learning to walk or childish giggles would have been. She told herself that she was happy with her life, that she didn't need anything else to make it complete.

Pon farr changed everything.

She'd heard whispered rumors of the plak tow, the blood fever that enveloped Vulcan males every seven years, propelling them to mate, fight or die, but it wasn't something Sarek had ever spoken of directly. So when her husband began to behave erratically, raising his voice, arguing over things that didn't matter, refusing to eat, disappearing into the mountains for hours, she had no idea what could possibly be wrong with him.

But in her confusion over his increasingly out-of-character behavior, she missed her appointment for her monthly hypospray.

Although they'd never stopped making love, their intimacy had begun to show signs of aging. The nights they joined, though always wonderfully fulfilling, were few and far between and always methodically planned. So three days later, when Sarek pushed her into the bedroom in the middle of the afternoon, his eyes on fire, his hands greedy and rough, Amanda didn't protest. She just let him take her. By the time the sun set, she was sore and bruised yet thoroughly sated and more in love with her husband than ever.

She was also pregnant.

* * *

Sarek was off-world when she found out for sure, having exiled himself to Earth after what he considered to be his unforgivable behavior during his plak tow. She hadn't been able to convince him that she'd cherished every mark he'd left on her pale skin, that she would always remember the way he'd desperately clung to her while their bodies had moved as one. He hadn't believed her tears had been of joy rather than pain.

"It would be best to terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible."

Although the doctor she'd gone to this time was not the same one as before, she might as well have been. They seemed to be of the same mind. Humans and Vulcans were not meant to breed.

And, god forgive her, for a second, Amanda actually considered it. Maybe it was logical to end it now, before she began to love this child, too.

Bile rose up in her throat at the idea. "No," she murmured after she'd fought back the nausea. "I want to speak to my husband first."

But she didn't. And when Sarek returned to Vulcan three months later, it was too late. She'd felt the baby move for the first time and her heart already rested in the child's barely-formed hands.

The one good thing about having a Vulcan husband was that he concealed his anger well. Upon seeing her for the first time, her stomach obviously bigger than it had been when he'd left, he merely raised a cool eyebrow.

"You said you did not want this," Sarek reminded her. "Why did you not..."

Amanda cut him off. "If you think I could ever get rid of a baby we made together, you don't know me at all."

They stared at each other for a long time before Sarek looked away. "It is your body," he said indifferently. "If you wish to go through this again, it is your choice."

Deep within her, the baby fluttered. It was all the confirmation she needed to know that, for better or for worse, she'd made the right choice.

* * *

For three months after his return, Sarek had refused to acknowledge her ever-expanding stomach. He treated her like finely-blown glass, something to be looked at rather than touched. Although they slept side by side every night, he never reached for her and certainly never reached for the baby.

She was well into her seventh month when she woke one morning to the feeling of his hands on her stomach. She drew in a sharp breath; the memory of the last time she'd woken to this sight made her blood run cold.

But instead of worry, this time she saw only amazement in his eyes when their gazes met.

"He is moving." Sarek's voice was quiet, as if speaking too loudly would end the moment. "He is strong."

Amanda nodded as a tear trickled down her cheek. "He's your son."

The last month of the pregnancy was the worst, not because she was sick or even overly tired or emotional, but because every day past the eight month mark felt like borrowed time. Amanda went to sleep every night feeling so grateful for having made it another day. But when she woke in the morning, she was filled with a sense of dread. Would that day be the baby's last?

Even when the labor pains finally began, she wasn't entirely convinced that she wasn't simply spontaneously aborting. It wasn't until it was all over...the blood, the pain, the sweat, the tears...and she was holding a plump, wailing infant with pointed ears and perfect lungs that Amanda let herself believe it had really happened.

"Spock," she whispered as she cradled the baby against her breast. The baby would have a true Vulcan name, one that no human would ever be able to pronounce, but she'd found this name in an ancient book of philosophy, buried deeply in the footnote of a footnote. It was uncommon and therefore perfect for their son.

Sarek looked back and forth between the baby and her, as if he couldn't believe they were both a part of his life, that he couldn't possibly be that blessed. He sank down beside her and touched Spock's tiny hand. His son's delicate fingers closed around his; Sarek drew in a deep breath.

Offspring were not merely possible, they were miracles.

* * *

Amanda didn't live to become a grandmother, but Sarek was there on the day his son became a father. He stood at the far end of the birthing room, watching as Spock and his wife welcomed their daughter. Their journey had been easier than his and Amanda's, with more joy than sorrow, but the end result was the same: a perfect child, although this one had pale mocha skin and slightly raised ears.

His wife would have loved the baby, as she would have loved its mother, the woman who had brought such joy and contentment into Spock's life. On the day of their wedding, Sarek had told Nyota Uhura as much and when she'd started to cry, he hadn't confused her tears for anything other than happiness.

After his wife fell asleep, exhausted from a long day of labor, Spock brought his daughter over to meet her grandfather. It had been years since Sarek had held a baby, but the instinct was still there. He settled the little girl into the crook of his arm just as he held her father so many years earlier.

"Would it offend you, or Mother's memory, if we do not name her Amanda?" Spock asked a moment later.

Sarek shook his head. "No. I had one Amanda in my life and I still mourn for her."

"As do I," Spock murmured.

"If I may suggest a name?" Sarek waited for his son to nod. "Sarela." When Spock frowned, he explained, "She would have been your elder sister."

"Mother would have approved of this?"

The memory of Amanda's smile hurt, but he nodded, swallowing heavily as he passed the little girl back to her father. "With her whole heart." Sarek paused. "That was the only way your mother knew how to love."

"Perhaps..." Spock looked down at his sleeping daughter. "It is the right way."

Sarek inclined his chin. "I believe she would have agreed." He put a hand on his son's shoulder. "But Spock...you were not exclusively her miracle."

With that, he left his son to marvel over his own miracle.

* * *

The End


End file.
